Papilionis
by Cracktastical
Summary: Some butterflies were just never meant to be free. One-sided Balthazar/Dave slash. Rated T for safety.


_**Papilionis**_

To say it was unorthodox would be a dreadful understatement, because it was, most certainly, far more than unorthodox. It was bizarre, incomprehensible, supposedly impossible, and, among all other things, terribly _wrong_. These feelings were meant to be dispelled, and forgotten. No other fate would be acceptable but that.

And yet, he knew it was useless. To hope for that. To believe it would happen. To think that he would manage to destroy emotions as easily as destroying a toothpick.

Sorcery was not the same as dealing with the magic of the heart. He could pretend that it was, but it really wasn't. He'd already lied to himself far too many times to afford another instance.

But who could blame him?

The boy was – at a risk of sounding cliché and re-used – beautiful. No, he wasn't perfect. His teeth were crooked, his eyes a boring brown, his hair mussed, and his sense of fashion a vomit-inducing sort of thing (but who was he to judge the boy's tastes in clothing? He wasn't doing any better, after all). Personality-wise, he was probably worse. Low self-esteem, an innate clumsiness, the foreboding taste of awkward, and a general inability to understand simple instruction – they were bad qualities. The boy had terrible qualities, and yet those things seemed to mean nothing.

Nothing, compared to who he was.

And it wasn't because of the boy's powers that he fell so hard. If anything, his powers meant nothing, and he only acknowledged them because if it weren't for those gifts, he would have never met the young man in the first place. No, it was more than that. Like his feelings, there was so much more underneath. It was the little things, like when the boy would gesture animatedly with his hands, sometimes the gestures melting flawlessly into full-out flailing. He particularly enjoyed when the boy made his little noises of frustration, an 'aww', or an 'oof', or a general sound of displeasure whenever something bad happened. There was also the laughter, lovingly garnished with a snort when it got too difficult to contain, and along with that, the inner goodness and purity.

The boy was just like _her_, but he _wasn't_.

It was complicated.

He knew that it wasn't just because the boy was just like her that he fell the way he did.

It was _so_ complicated.

And he couldn't break it down into something simpler.

The complex workings of the machine in his heart blurred, flickering between unsure and guilty and desiring and _yes_ and _no_ and a certain four letter word he would never speak out loud. They were as constant as the weather, and as difficult to segregate and define as catching a falling star. One thousand or so years could not prepare him for this barrage of emotions, but it wasn't like the planets aligned with a warning for him of what was to come.

Dave Stutler just wandered into his life, and carved a sign that he was there.

He wanted that boy, so bad. They clicked, they whirred, and they worked together better than any well-oiled contraption of a brother Wright. Dave was the coil, and he was the cage. Sparks flew, and they always connected.

There were these quiet moments when their gazes would lock, Dave practicing a spell and him looking up just to make sure Dave wasn't going to break anything. Those boring brown eyes would be so interesting at that point in time, filled with feelings, filled with humanity; and they would be anything _but_ the b-word that he liked to say they were. Sometimes he pretended, created an illusion like the sorcerer he was, that his own feelings were reflected in those intuitive brown hues. A hundred percent of the time, the illusion didn't work. There was nothing but a love from a friend to another, or a son to a father. The notion that his feelings weren't reciprocated made him seem like an even worse man than he already was.

But, _God_, it was so difficult to keep them at bay. It took every muscle in his body to keep from coming undone whenever his name was stated, or called, or shouted in frustration. The three syllables came out like a melody whenever Dave spoke it, and it was only when Dave spoke it that he did not feel weary of having heard it for the past millennium. He had to resist fixing the boy's jacket, had to resist indicating that his shoes were untied and bending down to fix them himself, had to resist fixing that terrible hair, or to touch a 5 o'clock shadow that Dave would always forget to shave. He had to resist, and to what result? His efforts would not result in a happy ending. They never did.

First, with Veronica.

Now, with Dave.

He thought Dave would set him free.

He was wrong.

"Balthazar."

His name rang in his head for a few nanoseconds before he looked up from his book. It was Dave, of course. Who else would it be?

"I'm done with training, if you haven't already noticed," Dave said, a bit of a sarcastic note in his tone. He resisted the urge to crack a smile, and with years of control, he frowned briefly. "You're never done with training, Dave," he replied, smoothly. Dave looked about ready to shoot him in the foot, but this expression meant nothing.

"Well, I'm done with _today's_ training, which is good enough."

It was futile. Keeping Dave in the lab longer than he had to was always something he attempted, and always something he never achieved.

"That you are." His lips twitched slightly. Dave seemed relieved, and he took off the ridiculous padding he always wore, tossing it to the side. He watched with a quiet intensity as the younger man bustled about, cleaning some things, and like he expected, Dave's gaze lifted. The colors of blue and brown clashed, an ache appeared in his heart, and hope blossomed like a vineyard. Desire. Need. Want. Desire. Need. Want. Desire. Need. Want. (And that four-letter word – always there, niggling at his brain.)

"Dave—"

But he could never finish his statement, because there was a knock on the metal entrance to the lab, and Dave had automatically moved to run to the door. Dave probably didn't even notice that someone's lips had created the sound of his name. The vineyard burnt to ashes.

It was a routine, and he watched with eyes betraying sadness as Dave left the lab, left with _her_. Anybody would notice the feelings in his eyes, but Dave was too busy with her, and she was too busy with him.

Balthazar Blake could not lie to himself.

And that was the cherry to top the cake – of how stupid this was, of how idiotic _he_ was, and of how little sense his desires made. He hoped, and he wished, and he _needed_, but he knew that it would make no difference. His 777th Order status meant nothing. He meant nothing. And this was unorthodox. And this was incomprehensible. And this was wrong.

And how could he compete against Rebecca Barnes?

He couldn't.

And that was the point.

So he hid, inside the persona of a man in a three-hundred something year old leather trench coat, inside the shell of the apprentice of Merlin, inside an impenetrable disguise of Master to the Prime Merlinian.

Dave did not set Balthazar free. He imprisoned him.

But prison was bittersweet.


End file.
